Ulster County”™s special task force on economic development has lessons that could help surrounding counties in the Hudson Valley, according to Jonathan Drapkin, the president and CEO of Pattern for Progress, who served as facilitator of the task force that was appointed by Ulster County Executive Mike Hein. It reported earlier this month.
Drapkin said he was brought in as a knowledgeable outsider to help guide a diverse task force of some 20 business, labor, environmental and nonprofit stakeholders assess the state of the county economy and its economic development efforts.
He said one useful idea was the task force idea itself, especially the diversity of the participants. Drapkin said he is an admirer of the work already being done by the many economic development and business groups in the Hudson Valley but said, “It was a very diverse group he (Hein) put together. I don”™t know how many of the economic development groups have brought this cross section together. Things looked s a little different under this microscope.”
He said the inclusion of groups that usually oppose each other made for a frank and productive exchange of ideas in a process that when played out in development scenarios can slow or even stymie projects.
“One of the things that really worked was the diversity of opinion,” Drapkin said. “People are concerned, they are even scared, and some are more bullish than others but they have a lot to say about their communities and what will work there.”
In terms of the task force recommendations, Drapkin endorsed the idea of a local and/or regional revolving loan fund using local banks and financial institutions who have in this area at least seemingly weathered the economic storm relatively well so far. He said it makes sense to pool their capital in some way and share the risks of supporting local business initiatives.Â
Drapkin said that with so much complexity confronting the new federal administration and ongoing gridlock in Albany, there is no assurance of help arriving from elsewhere. “It seems to me its essential in the economic development field, we”™re going to have to determine what we can do on our own in the Hudson Valley, which is no easy task,” Drapkin said.
He said that to assist in focusing economic development efforts, other counties could follow another recommendation of the Ulster County task force and compile more real-time and wide-ranging local economic data, to better show how business sectors are performing.
